NCTE News

The NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English) Convention was great! Like Mary Lee, I went to lots of great sessions. According to Chicken Spaghetti, lots of us were there! It is a great convention for fans of kid lit! We also heard Bruce Degan and Joanna Cole talk about the 20th anniversary of The Magic School Bus. It is pretty amazing that it is 20 years old! They were great speakers and the 20th anniversary book looks like it might be my favorite in the series. The Books for Children Lunch is one of my favorite sessions every year. We get a great speaker (children's author, we get to sit at a table with a children's author AND we get free children's books! Sharon Taberski, author of On Solid Ground, was the opening speaker for "A Day of Early Childhood". It was a great talk about appropriate comprehension instruction in grades K-2. 

Lots of talk about No Child Left Behind and the harm it is doing to children. I went to a session and heard Susan Ohanian. She has an interesting website that I would suggest visiting. Lots of interesting things going on around this NCLB stuff. She has several initiatives and lots of info on her site. In the name of children, lots of bad things are going on that are getting in the way of student learning. My favorite adult author, Ann Patchett spoke on Thursday evening but I missed her. There were also lots of other sessions with children's authors. I tend to go to teaching sessions but for those of you interested in children's books, you could technically go to 3-4 days' worth of author sessions. I heard that the ALAN (The Assembly on Literature for Adolescents) sessions were amazing on Monday and Tuesday but I couldn't stay for those. Next year, NCTE is in New York City! I would highly recommend it!